Editor urges policymakers to invest in rural Jamaica
Published:Saturday | March 26, 2011 | 12:00 AM
The Gleaner Company on Thursday launched its Rural Xpress feature that is carried in the Saturday Gleaner each week.
Gleaner editor-in-chief Garfield Grandison used the occasion to voice the newspaper's continued commitment to ensuring that stories about people in rural Jamaica are told.
"We are leading a charge and a campaign to change that," he said on the issue of ignoring happenings in the countryside.
"Hence, the Rural Xpress seeks to highlight what is happening in the countryside and also to encourage economic activity and growth. This series of forums we are launching today is to look at the challenges and opportunities that exist in the parishes, and to have discussions to see how is it that we are going to change things as they are today," Grandison told business and civic leaders in Clarendon on Thursday.
He said the Rural Xpress represented another platform for the press to explore and highlight issues that would normally be overshadowed by events such as the Manatt enquiry
"We are ensuring that despite the fact that that is happening and a lot of attention is being paid to it, we say we ought to look at the other things that are happening in the countryside," Grandison said. He cited the need for a more structured and targeted approach to getting an understanding of how life in rural Jamaica can affect national development.
The Gleaner editor-in-chief was addressing a Gleaner parish-development forum hosted in collaboration with the Clarendon Chamber of Commerce at the Versalles Hotel in May Pen. He noted that the newspaper was celebrating the 10th anniversary of its successful Editors' Forum series.